I’d love to give this a simple upvote. What is Tim Cook’s choice here? Operate illegally in China until the government shuts down their entire source of revenue in an entire market which, also, is the one that produces nearly all of its hardware?

If he doesn’t do it - shareholders will remove him in the blink of an eye and replace him with someone who will.

Where I’m agreeing though is - my current phone is my last Apple phone. I’ll be going with Graphene after this. I don’t want corporations telling me what software I can and can’t run on my decides while surveilling me.

Part of the problem with "China Bad" articles is that they tend to report "Thing Happened" without diving into the "Here's Why". If you get past the Engadget article that's just a four paragraph click-through/reprint of the Wired article and read the original piece, there's at least a bit more meat on the bone.

https://www.wired.com/story/apple-removes-gay-dating-apps-china-app-store/

In July, Blued abruptly stopped new user registration without giving an explanation, according to Chinese social media posts. For a month, Chinese users who wanted to get on the platform were paying as much as $20 for secondhand Blued accounts on ecommerce websites. But registration resumed in mid-August.

In 2020, BlueCity, the parent company of Blued, went public. It announced that the app had over 49 million registered users and over 6 million monthly active users. The same year, BlueCity said it was acquiring Finka, its main competitor in China, for about $33 million. The company delisted in 2022 and was acquired by Newborn Town, a Hong Kong–listed social media firm. Most of the longtime employees of Blued, including its founder Ma Baoli, left the company after the acquisition, says a former Blued employee who asked not to be named for privacy reasons.

In 2024, Blued rebranded its international version of the app to HeeSay, which became popular among users in India, Pakistan, and the Philippines, according to The Wall Street Journal. HeeSay remains available in app stores.

So the apps merged, then were traded, had the team gutted, and the app pivoted to serving an entirely new audience of users.

Why would this provoke a response from a Chinese regulator? Idk. Would be great to find out further details from the news outlet itself, rather than just getting another "China hates gay people" superficial response.

It doesn't look like the Cyberspace Administration of China purged all gay dating apps from their behind-the-firewall app store. So it seems premature to conclude this is a new vast pogrom against gay dating. Was Blued/Finka filling up with scams to the point that a regulator stepped in? Was there some kind of personal beef between the new owners and the Chinese regulatory agency? Did a bribe not get paid? Is this actually the beginning of a vast pogrom against all dating apps?

No fucking clue. And nobody doing the reporting seems to be interested in following up and asking.

I mean, it didn’t stop them from disobeying laws in western countries and the EU. They will comply when they know there’s no way to wiggle out of it

As someone else mentioned, if he didn't cave & risked losing the China market, the board would replace him in a heartbeat with someone who will do whatever it takes to keep the money flowing.

I can only imagine this pains him to do seeing as he's gay himself.

One of them already downvoted you. I'm sure that more of them are coming.

pink washing is a thing and the americans are the at it.